Focus on Surya as Indian batters burn midnight oil to tackle 'Starc The Menace'

The prima donnas of Indian batting will have to put their best foot forward while tackling the lethal indippers from Mitchell Starc when they face Australia in the seriesdeciding third ODI here on WednesdayIf Starc is giving sleepless nights to the batters the other Mitchell Mitchell Marsh has sent the Indian bowlers on a leather hunt by hitting nearly a dozen sixes 11 across two games Tackling Mitchell The Menace will be topmost on the Indian teams agendaThe series is locked at 11 and the starry quartet of Rohit Sharma Virat Kohli Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav will have to bat out of their skins to stop the leftarm pacer who is gearing up to once again bring the ball back viciously into the righthanders while taking a few awayA sea change on the technical aspect as well mental makeup will be the need of the hour and Starc has exposed their frailties pretty badlyThe white ball games in India are mostly played on flat decks where one can get away by hitting through the line where one doesnt need too much of feet movement A batter can plonk the frontfoot and hit deliveries across the line with a fair degree of successBut Starc blessed with better skill sets changed the questionnaire with deliveries that would either straighten in the offmiddle line or cut back sharply towards legmiddle after a fair amount of deviation in the airThe Indians have known what Starc has done for the longest time but they failed to factor in that conditions in Mumbai and Visakhapatnam would assist his bowling a bit more In Mumbai there was help off the surface but in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam the ball did more in the air than off the surfaceThe refurbished Chepauk with all its stands being open for public viewing will be hosting an international game after quite some time and the relaid pitch will attract a lot of attentionAlso Read Has shown potential in whiteball cricket Rohit Sharma backs Suryakumar YadavNormally Chepauk produces a track that is effective for slow bowlers and runscoring in the middle overs might be difficultHowever an interesting aspect of this years pitch preparation will be keeping Chennai Super Kings strength in mind and one might see some initial nip off the surface for the fast bowlersSuryas problemsSuryakumar Yadav in T20Is can do no wrong with his aggressive shuffling inside the crease but that exaggerated movement across the crease has led to a couple of identical firstball dismissals for him in both ODIsTo play swing and seam one needs to maintain perfect balance and play the ball as late as possible Surya always tries to play late in T20s and hence it is a bit surprising that he is trying to meet the ball early in this formatWith no Shreyas Iyer for sometime this is actually Suryas best time to grab the opportunity and seal an ODI World Cup berth but he has been far from convincing so farOf course we have seen and he knows that he needs to do well in the slightlylonger format of the game as well Things are there in his mind as well Guys with potential will have enough run so that they dont feel like okay I wasnt given enough chances in that particular slot skipper Rohit had said after the last gameSurya got out in the last two games and in the series before that as well He needs that consistent run like backtoback games 7 8 and 10 games like that So that he feels more comfortable the skipper had assuredThe next run of ODIs will only be in JuneJuly and there is a possibility that Iyer could be fit by then to reclaim his place and Surya might find it difficult to get his share of chancesBowling attackThe Indian bowling attack needs to take its workload management seriously but truth be told the bowlers havent had much work to do as they have bowled a total of 47 overs 36 and 11 across the two games That is not even half of the 100 allocated oversMohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj wouldnt mind making first use of the Chepauk surface if Rohit happens to win the tossThe key question is if Shardul Thakur or Jaydev Unadkat for his leftarm variation will be used as third specialist seamer or both spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel will get another game alongside Ravindra JadejaTeamsIndia Rohit Sharma captain Shubman Gill Virat Kohli Suryakumar Yadav KL Rahul wk Hardik Pandya Ravindra Jadeja Axar Patel Kuldeep Yadav Mohammed Shami Mohammed Siraj Shardul Thakur Washington Sundar Ishan Kishan Jaydev Unadkat Yuzvendra Chahal Umran MalikAustralia Steve Smith captain Mitchell Marsh Travis Head Marcus Stoinis Glenn Maxwell Marbnus Labuschagne Cameron Green Nathan Ellis Mitchell Starc Sean Abbott Adam Zampa Ashton Agar David Warner Alex Carrey Jos IglisMatch Starts 130 pmThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason 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